DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



der by the rich nourishment they had feasted on, 

 and by this time entirely consumed, writhing 

 and striving to penetrate through the four clay 

 walls of the cell into which they had been de- 

 coyed, their gnawing hunger, their vain strug- 

 gles upward, he would not require to be puz- 

 zling his head so much about yellow blights and 

 premature decline. The surface soil is the soil 

 for roots; make that fat and loose, and lead 

 your roots into it, and not into the bowels of the 

 earth away from sun and air, and light. Having 

 officiated at numerous funerals of this kind, I 

 speak knowingly of the sad effects. Some years 

 since, passing through a new peach orchard on 

 a gentleman's country seat, a few miles from 

 town, in rather a hurry, after a flock of quails, 

 I went sock into one of those deep holes half 

 full of water ; on scrambling out and surveying 

 the premises, I perceived numerous other ex- 

 cavations taking their winter soak in true ama- 

 teur fashion, so giving the owner a hasty anath- 

 ema,! trudged home rather in poor plight . How- 

 ever I consoled myself that there would be few 

 peaches gathered there. It is now a pasture 

 with some dead sticks marking the spot where 

 peach roots were buried. Yours, respectfully, 

 C. G. SiEWERS. Cincinnati, Jan. 19, 1852. 



Our correspondent is both right and wrong. 

 He is right in saying that it is folly to dig deep 

 holes in clay hard-pan, unless such hard-pan is 

 broken up and the holes drained. The advice 

 to dig deep holes, was based upon the supposi- 

 tion that the subsoil was one that would drain 

 itself. Such is the fact in good soils generally, 

 and where an exception occurs the practice must 

 be varied. 



In other ca.ses there is great advantage in 

 deepening the soil in the hole. It enables the 

 roots to go down for nourishment out of the 

 reach of the burning sun, — a great gain in a hot 

 climate. Of course, if one could afford to trench 

 the whole garden or orchard, we would always 

 do so instead of preparing any holes at all — but 

 where neither the trenching nor subsoil plowing 

 is possible, then one must dotlic next best thing. 

 After a while, of course the roots will entirely 

 occupy the deeply prepared soil in the hole — 

 but nothing then prevents those nearest the sur- 

 face from striking out in the surfiice soil, and 

 all that can be gained thereby. For the 

 e think it quite as likely that the peach 



trees our correspondent refers to were killed by 

 deep planting, as by the deep soil into which 

 they were put. The first, kills thousands of 

 trees annually. We never knew a single tree 

 killed by the latter. 



Destruction of Peach Bcds. — Dec. 27th 

 exhibited the coldest morning of the present 

 winter. At three o'clock A . M., the thermome- 

 ter stood at 22° below zero ; at daylight at 17°, 

 the wind having changed to the east, meanwhile, 

 Previously to this severe weather a large por- 

 tion of the fruit buds of the peach, retained 

 their vitality. Immediately subsequent to that 

 day, they were generally dead. I have a few 

 very strong seedlings, however, that are yet 

 safe. C. E. Goodrich. Utica. Feb. 6, 1851. 



Ventilation. — The public are by degrees 

 waking up from the lethargy into which they 

 have sunk, regarding the uses and necessity of a 

 supply of pure air to breathe. The following 

 true and straight forward article from the Tri- 

 bune, is well worthy of perusal and reperusal. 

 Pale faces and '•' nervous complaints," more 

 common among our countrymen, and especially 

 countrywomen, than among any civilized peo- 

 ple on the globe, are the effects of a total igno- 

 rance of all the laws of respiration, and a blind 

 passion for close Stoves and furnaces. There is 

 not a railroad car in the country, heated by its 

 red hot stove, which is not an enemy to health, 

 more to be dreaded than the cholCi'a — and yet 

 our people sit still and drink in the poison of air, 

 expelled again and again from the lungs of those 

 crowded around them, as if the thing were 

 either delightful or irremediable. Ed. 



Tlie fundamental truth that air inhaled by 

 breathing is essential to the preservation of ani- 

 mal, including human life, we may fairly pre- 

 sume to be generally understood. If any one 

 could be found to doubt it, he might easily be 

 convinced by trying the experiment of not 

 breathing for two or three minutes. But the 

 intimately related and equally important truths 

 tliat every human being has lungs, or air cham- 

 bers, wherein the inhaled air or breath is con- 

 sumed or worked over by a process akin to 

 combustion — that the oxygen which forms one- 

 fifth of the air is thereby extracted from the 

 residuum, or nitrogen, and employed to clarify 

 the blood of its constantly accumulating impu- 

 rities — that the blood which, thus freslily reno- 

 vated with oxygen, has been ejected into the 

 arteries of a bright red color, and in a thoroughly 

 liquid state, is returned thorough the veins 



